The NewerTech miniStack has been chosen as our Mac mini accessory of the year. Other finalists included the LaCie mini, Belkin Hub for Mac mini, Pressure Drop zStand, and Plasticsmith miniTower. There are several features that make the miniStack stand out from the crowd, including price, quality, functionality, and performance. We also appreciate the number of different configurations offered, software bundle, and two-year warranty. "NewerTech has always put quality and functionality first," said Larry O'Connor, founder of NewerTech. "We are pleased to find this separated the NewerTech miniStack to be above the rest."

The miniStack also won a recent poll in our forums. We asked our members what they thought was the best accessory for the Mac mini released this year. The miniStack won the poll with 57% of the votes. The LaCie mini came in second with 23%, followed by the Belkin Hub for Mac mini with 16%, and Pressure Drop zStand with 2%.

We look forward to seeing what new Mac mini accessories will be released in 2006. From what we hear, there are going to be a few interesting ones!

2006 should be a very interesting interesting year for the mini. If a model aimed at the living room comes out, we may see 1000's of new accessories (similar to the iPod craze).

I don't know about 1000's, but external drives that match the Mac mini may become more popular. You are going to want something that looks good sitting next to the Mac mini and provides extra space for storing TV shows, movies, pictures and music. You'll also want something that has a front USB port or two so you don't have pull the Mac mini out of your TV stand every time you need to plug in a device, if the next Mac mini doesn't include one itself._________________1.42GHz Mac mini
2.0GHz Core 2 Duo Mac mini
2.0GHz Core 2 Duo Mac mini (2009)
2.5GHz Core i5 Mac mini (2011)
24" Dell LCD & 42" Sharp TV
EyeTV 250 Plus
1G, 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G iPod nanos
16GB 3G iPhone

I bought the 160GB LaCie mini a few weeks ago, and couldn't be happier with it. I was going to buy the miniStack, but changed my mind at the last moment after seeing it in person at the Apple Store. The LaCie mini only has two bad things going for it. The power button doesn't feel very solid, and it only has one pass-through firewire port. Other than those two things, it's nearly perfect. I was also a little hesitant of the big LaCie logo on the front before seeing it. I must say in person it looks great. Pictures don't do it justice. You still need to check this one out.

Do you have to use the power button very often, or does the drive power up/down with the mini?
What happens to the drive when the mini goes to sleep?

I cloned my drive with SuperDuper, and played around with it as a boot drive for a few days. I stopped using it as a boot drive and reformatted it. I mostly use it for storing photos and MTR rips now. I take tons and tons of pictures, it's sort of a hobby of mine.

When I was using it as a boot drive it would not power up and down with the mini. I had to turn off the LaCie's power button, and turn it on before turning on the Mac mini or it would boot to the Mac mini's internal drive.

The LaCie mini's drive spins down when the Mac mini goes to sleep. When the Mac mini wakes there can be a small delay before the LaCie mini wakes up. Maybe like 5 seconds or so.

I really needed more storage for my RAW photos. I'm also using the LaCie mini with my new (refurbished) 12" iBook. I had no plans to use it as a boot drive full time. It was more of a personal experiment to see how much better the Mac mini would perform with a faster hard drive.

The miniStack, Lacie mini and Belkin hub were without a doubt the best. What do you guys think was the worst or stupidest? I think it was the Mac mini filter base. It doesn't seem very smart to block the Mac mini's bottom vents with a foam filter. I thought the stand looked cool though.